"Our panful is cool enough!" declared Peter, flourishing the blue-and-white-checked gingham apron which veiled his long legs, as he returned from the porch, where the candy had been cooling. "Now, partner, hands buttered, courage good? Stand ready to take hold when I say the word, I 'll work the lump into malleable condition. Open the door into the wood-shed, please. We 'll do our pulling there, if it's not too cool for you; then we 'll not get stuck."
"Ooh-h-h!" Shirley gave a little shriek as Peter presently, with a deft pull of his big lump into a long, smooth skein, handed her one end with the injunction to draw it out quickly and swing it back to him. "But it's hot!"
"Of course it is, Miss Tender-Fingers! If we let it get comfortably cool we could n't pull it at all. Keep hold--keep it moving. Don 't let it stay in your fingers long enough to stick. Pull--swing--pull--swing! Hold on! You're getting stuck! Wait a minute!"
"I can't do anything but wait!" gasped Shirley, holding up ten fingers hopelessly embedded in a mass of uncomfortably warm material.
"What! Can this be the expert stenographer, all balled up in a couple of quarts of molasses? Hold still! Don't try to work out. I 'll pull you loose. Don't let the others see. Keep away from that kitchen door!"
But Rufus, pulling smoothly away from Jane, with the art acquired by much practice in past years, spied out the tangled ones. His shout of laughter brought all the others toward the wood-shed door.
Shirley and Peter were obliged to return to the kitchen to obtain butter for the stuck-up fingers. They fell into a state of great merriment over the situation, in which everybody else joined appreciatively, and the old kitchen rafters rang with the laughter.
"Where would the stage apron be now? This is no gallery play!" jeered Peter, rescuing one long string of brownish-yellow sweetness from the front of Shirley's big white apron. "Want a taste? Shut your eyes and open your mouth!"
"No, thank you. Eat it yourself."
"I will," and Peter tipped back his head.